As a first responder, we have a duty to the public. If someone calls 911 for any reason, we have a duty to help them whether it’s a medical emergency, trauma, psychiatric issue, or something else. We have a duty to help achieve the best possible outcome. However, just helping when they ask for help, isn’t always enough. It is also partially our responsibility to make sure people can help themselves. The best way to do that is prevention and education. Preventing an incident is just as important as being there to help after an incident has already occurred.
If we can help to prevent an incident from occurring, we can ease the burden on EMS systems, decrease ER wait times, and most importantly we could save lives. Why is it my/our responsibility to prevent incidents, and how can I make a difference? First responders such as EMTs, paramedics, nurses, doctors, firefighters, and law enforcement can educate the general public about common issues and provide some basic skills to potentially save lives.
You would think this is common sense, but as first responders we know that common sense isn’t very common. If your child is riding a bike, put a helmet on them, make them wear some bright or reflective clothing, and don’t let them ride in the street. If your child or anyone is near water, whether they are taking a bath, swimming in the pool, lake, or ocean, watch them. Actually keep your eyes on them. Get your child into swimming lessons and put flotational devices on them. Keep the cover on your home pool and keep the gate around it locked. Don’t let people swim in areas that are beyond their swimming ability. This is just as vital for adults as it is for children. Adults are statistically more likely to drown than a child simply because teenagers and adults overestimate their ability to swim. If you get caught in a ripe ride, if your foot gets caught on an underwater branch or debris, or if you’ve been drinking, would you know how to save yourself? Most people think they do, but they are wrong. Simply having supervision while in the water can save lives. What about driving in the car? This is something that most of us do every day. Everyone should be wearing an approved seatbelt. This means that adults should have a lap and shoulder belt, and children should be in an approved car seat. And not just sitting in the seat, they actually need to be properly secured to the seat, and the seat needs to be properly secured inside the vehicle.
We also need to educate the public about keeping children away from chemicals and medications. Children explore the world with their mouths, and they don’t know that some things might be bad for them. It is all too common that medication bottles are out in the open, without a lid properly screwed on. When it comes to medications like opioids and cardiac pills, one pill can kill, with children. Almost every household has cleaning supplies, Windex, drain cleaner, toilet cleaner, sanitizer, laundry and dishwashing soaps and more. Have you ever looked at the colors of those cleaners? They are all bright, pretty colors that attract kids. Windex is a pretty blue, looks like juice. Degreaser is usually a bright, pretty orange, pink, yellow, or green. Again, it looks like juice and catches the kids’ attention. The cleaning pods for laundry and dishwasher are small, squishy, and colorful. They look like candy. But all these things can cause burns, bleeding, and swelling. They can all negative affect the airway, heart, GI tract and more. We shouldn’t need to tell people to keep these things out of reach, but we do! Kids get into that stuff every day and have inhalation, ingestions, and overdose injuries.
What about CPR and bleeding control? Right now, the average 911 ambulance response is about 7-10 minutes. This could be even longer if you are in a remote area, or if the local 911 system is busy. If someone goes into cardiac arrest, that person’s brain is going to die if someone doesn’t do high quality chest compressions to adequately perfuse the brain. If they must wait for an ambulance, that patient likely won’t have a good outcome, if they survive at all. It should be our responsibility to make sure the public knows how to do CPR. Where to put their hands, how fast and deep to compress. 911 dispatchers are pretty good at talking callers through it, but they need some foundational knowledge first.
Same thing with bleeding control, if someone has a significant injury, most people don’t know how to slow that bleeding. If the patient has to wait 7-10 minutes for me to arrive, that patient could be in hypovolemic shock or even dead by the time I get there. We should be teaching people how to do direct pressure, how to use a tourniquet, and give them access to some basic trauma supplies. There are free classes, such as Stop the Bleed, but these classes don’t do any good if people don’t know about it. Simply telling people how to access these courses is getting us going in the right direction.
Technically, no, it is not our responsibility to teach the public how to keep themselves safe, but most of us got into EMS to help people. Yes, it is a job and we do get paid for it, but let’s be honest, you can make a lot more money at other jobs. We’re here to help, so let’s help them, help themselves. Prevention is half the battle, and unfortunately common sense and some education is the other half. We can’t always give people common sense, but sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. We can help with that part.
